1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an optical pickup device and a method of manufacturing the optical pickup device. In particular, the invention relates to an optical pickup device in which electronic components are connected by an electrically-conductive binder such as solder, and also relates to a method of manufacturing the optical pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical pickup device has functions to make a light-emitting element emit a laser beam of a predetermined wavelength onto an optical disc, and then to make a light-receiving element detect the laser beam reflected by an information recording layer of the optical disc (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-216436). Thus, the optical pickup device is capable of reading and writing information from and to an optical disc. A known optical pickup device includes a housing which is integrally molded from a resin material, which mounts therein electronic components such as a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element and optical elements such as various kinds of lenses and a semitransparent mirror, and to which an objective-lens driver unit is configured to drive an objective lens is fixed.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view illustrating a part of a conventional optical pickup device 100. As shown in FIG. 5, electronic components and optical elements such as a laser diode 106 and a semitransparent mirror 104 are fixed to predetermined positions in a housing 102 of the optical pickup device 100.
An optical pickup device with the above-described configuration is manufactured in the following way. Firstly, electronic components and optical elements such as a light-emitting element, a light-receiving element, various lenses, and mirrors are placed at predetermined positions in the housing 102. Secondly, the electronic components are electrically connected to predetermined portions via a circuit board fixed to the housing 102. Then, with a laser beam actually emitted from the light-emitting element, some predetermined optical elements and the light-receiving element are adjusted to such positions that the laser beam emitted by the light-emitting element can be cast upon a predetermined light-receiving area of the light-receiving element.